Blogging Woolf

It’s the end of the year, so we have lots of Woolf sightings connecting her to the literature of 2011. That is to be expected.

But this week we also have a quirky one linking her to a pop song about swimming/suicide in Malibu. That one is a stretch for anyone who knows Woolf. And there are legitimate mentions of a recent acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of Man Ray papers, ephemera, and portraits of Woolf.

See number 10 for the Malibu connection and numbers 37 and 38 for the Man Ray news.

1. The dark heart of Dickens: How writer was an abusive husband who seduced a …, Daily Mail
   To Leslie Stephen, the father of the novelist Virginia Woolf, he could be counted a success only if you defined the term as being admired by hordes of ‘half-educated’ people. No, there are flaws in his novels. They were written episodically, …
2. David Milch will tackle William Faulkner’s works for HBO, Los Angeles Times
   (Could an adaptation vivify the work, Hobson wonders, the way “The Hours” — filtered through a Michael Cunningham novel — did a Virginia Woolf novel?) Some writers have wish lists: Salman Rushdie told Slate he was hoping for a new “Sanctuary” and…
3. Our history – Part 2, Standard Speaker
   Many authors have written about their recollections: Updike, Kerouac, Annie Dillard, Bellow and Virginia Woolf to name a few. In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck reminisces about his hometown, Salinas, California, wondering what’s happened to his …
4. Economic Independence: Bedrock of Freedom, The Moral Liberal
   In 1929 the English writer Virginia Woolf inserted a famous phrase into feminist history: “a room of one’s own.” The main theme of her extended essay by this name is that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” or, …
5. A Year in Reading: Buzz Poole, The Millions
   This year, in terms of paying homage to the canon, I finally got around to reading some Virginia Woolf. I know, I know, late to the party on this one, but at least I made it. The careening interior monologues of Mrs. Dalloway serve as a prescient …
6. The publishing year: editors’ wishes and misses, The Guardian
   After splitting up with her boyfriend and her job, and with Virginia Woolf as her presiding spirit, Laing walks the 42 miles of the river Ouse in Sussex (where Woolf drowned herself in 1941). A reflection on nature and solitude that twists and turns …
7. Has ‘free wi-fi’ sucked the life out of coffeehouses?, Sacramento Bee (blog)
   Hemingway, Pound, Virginia Woolf, Fitzgerald. Even a bearded William Faulkner hit up Paris for a time. (A great book about this era, by the way, is by Morley Callaghan called “That Summer in Paris.”) Before the current wave – or third wave – of …
8. Articles in creative writing, Seven Days
   Later, after convincing Darla to wait for us in the pickup, Connors pulled out some black-and-white pictures of the actual Virginia Woolf. “I pulled these off the internet and printed them out. Are you online?” I glared at him. …
9. Kate Winslet finds delight in Carnage, The Province
   … self-righteousness that is one of the hallmarks of upscale Brooklyn neighborhoods, the film chronicles in real time the couples’ downward spiral as polite overtures give way to Scotch-and-cobbler-fueled invective — a sort of “Virginia Woolf lite. …
10. The Music Club, 2011, Slate Magazine
    But I’m mesmerized by the contrasts between the lilting melody, the propulsive rhythm, and the suicidal tendencies of “Swim Good,” with its
    

    Video of "Swim Good" on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmN9rZW0HGo

    Virginia Woolf-in-Malibu scenario. No wonder Ocean got tapped for Watch the Throne—Ye and Jay understand,…

11. How Economic Freedom Saved Wendy McElroy, Men’s News Daily
    (The “room of one’s own” remark is a reference to the book by Virginia Woolf.): I once needed a room of my own. And I know on a personal level how laws can harm those they intend to protect. I ran away from home at 16 years old because the streets were …
12. Holiday gift pick: ‘Pilgrimage’ by Annie Leibovitz, phillyBurbs.com (blog)
    She photographed Virginia Woolf’s writing table, Emily Dickinson’s only surviving dress, and Freud’s final couch. The photographs are mesmerizing and give viewers an intimate glance into the spaces of important historical figures. …
13. Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage, Hamiltons Gallery – review, Evening Standard
    With no agenda and no commissions, she headed for the people, places and associated objects which inspired and shaped her life and tastes – from Elvis to Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf. The exhibition’s 28 small, carefully printed …
14. Photographer Annie Leibovitz gets more personal with ‘Pilgrimage’, Las Vegas Review-Journal (blog)
    Leibovitz made trips to the homes of her favorite authors, including Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Louisa May Alcott, Emerson and Thoreau. She photographed a beautiful white dress of Dickinson’s, highlighting the details in what at first seems to be …
15. Annie Leibovitz and Tina Brown on Pilgrimage, Photography and Vanity Fair, Daily Beast
    I never would have been drawn to [Virginia] Woolf if not for her.” Pilgrimage is a glimpse into what fascinates the legendary photographer. The collection reveals as much about process—“This is like a note-taking of my other work,” she said, …
16. Writers at Work, Seeking a Spark, Wall Street Journal
    In “Dancing With Mrs. Dalloway”—the title refers to Virginia Woolf’s novel and people who inspired some of the characters—some of the literary back-stories presented are familiar; others, less so. Most readers will be aware that “Alice’s Adventures …
17. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twilight, and the Return of Women’s …, Huffington Post
    … lives and their complex characters figured in the birth of the modern novel, from Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. …
18. Martin Robinson: So you want to be a millionaire?, New Zealand Herald
    Virginia Woolf could only afford to become a full-time writer after she inherited money from her aunt, who was killed in a horse riding accident in India. Relatives can also drag you down, so be careful about lending them money. 6. No luck in NZ? …
19. Book World: Heller McAlpin reviews Alexandra Harris’s “Virginia Woolf”, Washington Post
    As Alexandra Harris aptly notes in her appealing, smartly written overview of the life, work and legacy of Virginia Woolf, “The telescope as well as the microscope has its role.” Harris, a young, Oxford-educated cultural historian who made a name for …
20. Why is incest all over prime time?, Salon
    Mary Jean Corbett, author of “Family Likeness: Sex, Marriage, and Incest From Jane Austen to Virginia Woolf,” writes in an email, “Incest tropes always test the bounds of what’s ‘natural,’ and in a time where there’s a fairly strong effort to ..
21. Wanna Be Famous? Science Says Get There By Age 30, Forbes
    For instance, the 1882 cohort includes Virginia Woolf and Felix Frankfurter; the 1946 one includes Steven Spielberg and Bill Clinton. In every year, there is a similar trend, with half of the famous people getting that way by relatively young age, …
22. Winter reads: The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico, The Guardian
    Only 15 years separate this novella from that other slim novel set in the searching beam of a lighthous, but Gallico makes no attempts at Virginia Woolf’s interiority: “She paused, and again Rhayader must have thought of the wild water birds caught …
23. Primakov in Concert, Vol. 2 = MENDELSSOHN, BACH, GLASS & DEBUSSY – Bridge, Audiophile Audition
    The story investigates the effect of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway influencing various characters’ tendency to self-destruction. Repetitive and haunted, the suite captures the opening suicide-note scene, rife with melancholy and doom. …
24. American playwright uses Russian language to say what can’t be said, Russia Beyond The Headlines
    In 1999, Metzler spent a year at Oxford University, where she had the opportunity to study two women writers for an entire academic year—Akhmatova and Virginia Woolf. “I love Akhmatova, her poems are so economic and precise. She bore witness to horror …
25. Interview: Lucy Wood, author of Diving Belles, The List
    I wish Virginia Woolf had lived longer, so that she might have been able to write more books. What one thing would you change about the publishing world? I don’t really have enough experience of the publishing world to be able to suggest any changes. …
26. Eonomic Independence: Bedrock of Freedom, The Moral Liberal
    In 1929 the English writer Virginia Woolf inserted a famous phrase into feminist history: “a room of one’s own.” The main theme of her extended essay by this name is that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” or, …
27. A Year in Reading: Buzz Poole, The Millions
    This year, in terms of paying homage to the canon, I finally got around to reading some Virginia Woolf. I know, I know, late to the party on this one, but at least I made it. The careening interior monologues of Mrs. Dalloway serve as a prescient …
28. The publishing year: editors’ wishes and misses, The Guardian
    After splitting up with her boyfriend and her job, and with Virginia Woolf as her presiding spirit, Laing walks the 42 miles of the river Ouse in Sussex (where Woolf drowned herself in 1941). A reflection on nature and solitude that twists and turns …
29. Freaks, Poets Compete in Paris Shows of Arbus, Freund: Review, BusinessWeek
    The sitters include Andre Gide, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Malraux, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. To give you an idea of the literary world in the 1930s the organizers have reproduced the facades of the bookshops where Freund …
30. A Year in Reading: Garth Risk Hallberg, The Millions
    You won’t catch me saying this often, but I think Virginia Woolf and VS Pritchett missed the boat on this one. Galsworthy’s style — his “port-wine irony,” as Pritchett puts it — looks pretty tasty a hundred years later, when the cultural palate tends …
31. Picking the best books of the past year, Austin American-Statesman
    The novella is making a comeback, and the festival suggests Melville House’s series “The Art of the Novella,” focusing on obscure works by writers such as Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton and others. Check out the full list at …
32. Life is filled with holes, Telegraph-Journal (registration)
    But it is also akin to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. The resonances are many and personal. They are also deliciously surprising and rewarding. s Michael W. Higgins is vice-president for mission and Catholic identity at Sacred Heart University, …
33. Music Weekly podcast: Best albums of 2011, The Guardian (blog)
    Kitty goes on to say that her image is “incredible” and that she does the “Virginia Woolf thing so well”. I wonder what the Virginia Woolf Thing might be. Let’s not even get started on how on earth, does Virginia Woolf have to do with (any)thing. …
34. The Exploding Boy and Other Tiny Tales by Nick Parker – review, The Guardian
    Self-publishing and DIY authors include, famously, William Blake, Lord Byron, Proust, Shelley, Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. But the world of self-publishing is mostly inhabited by cranks and hucksters (though Blake, …
35. Christopher Hitchens and a lifetime of language, Washington Post (blog)
    He had a profound knowledge of English literature, from AAMilne to Virginia Woolf. At the same time he had a profound experience of the world – he had been to Macedonia himself, several times – as well as a sense of humor so dry you could hear it crack …
36. Standouts in a Solo Setting, New York Times
    She radiated honesty and emotion in songs by Porpora, Mahler, Ravel and — fabulously — Dominick Argento (his cycle “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf”). IAN BOSTRIDGE At Carnegie last month this English tenor paced, grimaced, growled and soared …
37. Photographs and ephemera enhance the Getty’s unparalleled collections on Man Ray, Art Daily
    The agendas are joined by 51 vintage and modern photographic prints by Man Ray, dating from the 1920s to the 1970s, of prominent people including TS Eliot, James Joyce, Elsa Schiaparelli,Virginia Woolf, Paul Eluard, and Marcel Duchamp on his death bed …
38. Sculpture as Portrait at the Metropolitan, New York Times
    Also included are 51 Man Ray photographs of prominent writers and artists like TS Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. The acquisition also includes several objects Man Ray created, like a cigar box transformed into a New Year’s greeting card, …
39. Domestic labour, The Economist
    The life of Virginia Woolf, from 1882 to 1941, bracketed the period of the Servant Problem. Her mother, Julia, had married in 1867 and set up home with cook, kitchenmaids, housemaid, parlourmaid, lady’s maid, nurse, nursemaid and gardener. ..
40. Bloomberg New Contemporaries Find Its Legs At ICA, ArtLyst
    As Virginia Woolf claimed of books, perhaps so with works of art; ‘If they need shoring up by a preface here, an introduction there, they have no more right to exist than a table that needs a wad of paper under one leg in order to stand steady. …
41. Sally’s keys to success, Sydney Star Observer
    Whitwell said the “lovely lesbians” from The Hunger will also feature on the album, as well as some Virginia Woolf in the form of Philip Glass’ soundtrack from The Hours. “I’m doing more Philip Glass because I couldn’t help myself. …
42. Books: Review – Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis, Islington Tribune newspaper website
    We must be grateful that he has left us his powerful verse. • Dr Jean Moorcroft Wilson is a lecturer at London University and biographer of Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Charles Hamilton Sorley and Virginia Woolf. Edward Thomas.
43. Canucks respond to lazy Bolland insults with equally lazy insults, Yahoo! Sports (blog)
    Did you know Virginia Woolf once called Ulysses “the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples”? I assure you nothing I’m about to report can touch that. Let’s start on the gentle end, as Mike Gillis had his say during an interview on …
44. Nicole Kidman Hangs with Herald Reporter in Starbucks, No Big Deal, Boston Herald
    I don’t know what they’re doing back in Boston. They had previously been here so Keith could have surgery on his throat at MGH, so I’m thinking maybe they returned for a checkup. Either way, Nicole KIDMAN! aka Virginia Woolf in The Hours! …
45. Magic Mountain view … Davos in Switzerland, where the sanatorium that …, The Guardian
    This is a novel mystifyingly overlooked by Virginia Woolf in her 1926 essay On Being Ill, in which she bemoans literature’s failure to make illness one of its “prime themes” alongside “love and battle and jealousy.” Well, here illness is decidedly …
46. Cuba’s Vanito Brown and His ‘Havana in Full Color’, Havana Times
    It makes one think of that excellent novel by Virginia Woolf (The Waves), in which its characters are ruled by something (super) natural that they themselves defined as “waves.” Later Vanito croons the most beautiful and representative phrase of the …
47. Real People, Made-Up Stories, Wall Street Journal (blog)
    Michael Cunningham’s ‘reanimation’ of Virginia Woolf in his book “The Hours,” was the focus of some criticism. There are two conflicting schools of thought about novelists using real people as characters; I agree with both of them. On the one hand,…
48. Jane Smiley: Writers Need Community More Than They Need Solitude, SF Weekly (blog)
    She talked with us about enjoying the process, how living in Iowa supported her writing, and Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf’s community. In the book, you talk about how important community is for writers. Is the idea of a writer needing solitude still …
49. A Year in Reading: Mona Simpson, The Millions
    George Eliot and Virginia Woolf preferred it to Jane Eyre, while Thackeray couldn’t quite forgive Bronte for besetting her heroine two suitors to contend with, the first of whom does not love her, the second of whom is crabby. Once we accept the crabby …

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